Has the Culture War Replaced the Gospel? Harold Senkbeil and Lucas Woodford

This transcript has been lightly edited from an automated transcription for clarity and readability. While we've worked to preserve each speaker's words faithfully, errors may remain.

1. 00.00] (Harold Senkbeil) — Yeah, I think one of the key things about our book is that we contend that really the church has lost its focus due to the culture wars. There's a tendency to try to beat back things that we see that are destructive to the faith, but we use the weapons of sociology and the human terms of the surface things of trying to adjust the way that people think by sheer force. But if you look at the New Testament, you see that our Lord Jesus did not say, go forth and make disciples of cultures, but rather make disciples of people. And we're not trying to convert the culture as culture. We're trying to convert people who live within a culture and usher them in by means of the Word of God into this transcendent Kingdom of God so that they can live their vocations as lights in an increasingly dark world.

2. [00.55] (Michael Horton) — We don't want to live in the Village Green at the end of the day. We can all leave and return to our houses of worship, but our goal is to encourage conversational theology in the Village Green where we can rub shoulders with Christians from different traditions and expressions.

3. 01:19

   Well, I have the privilege of having an old friend on. I mean, old in terms of the years of our friendship, not—

4. 01:30

   Harold Senkbeil

   It's over 30 years, I'm sure.

5. 01:39

   Michael Horton

   Harold Senkbeil is with us, and a new friend, Lucas Woodford. It's great to have you on the program.

6. 01:40

   Lucas Woodford

   Thank you.

7. 01:40

   Michael Horton

   Harold Senkbeil is Executive Director Emeritus of Doxology, the Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care. He has five decades of pastoral experience. He's taught in the seminary classroom and in parachurch leadership. He's the author of numerous books, including award-winning The Care of Souls, Christ and Calamity, and my personal favorite, Dying to Live. Hal, it's great to have you back on the program.

8. 02:11

   Harold Senkbeil

   What a joy, Mike. You know, I can't believe it's over 30 years ago, I think, that Rod Rosenbladt and I traveled in a van many, many miles to a radio studio.

9. 02:22

   Harold Senkbeil

   We had a live radio hookup with—

10. 02:24

    Michael Horton

    We were just teenagers then.

11. 02:25

    Harold Senkbeil

    Yeah, I think you were. And then we went back to your bachelor pad, as I recall, afterwards.

12. 02:30

    Michael Horton

    That's right. And Lucas Woodford is president of the Minnesota South District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, previously served as a pastor for 15 years and fellow of Doxology, which Hal founded. It's great to have you both on the program today talking about such an important subject as we think about how we can reach the lost without losing the reached, essentially, how our mission can look more like the Book of Acts than the evening news. So it's great to have you both since you've talked about this, thought about this, and written about this for so long. So first of all, give me a little bit of background for what motivated you both to work on this project together?

13. 03:21

    Lucas Woodford

    Sure. Hal and I have been friends and became very close friends for a number of years now. Originally, we met in my doctoral program. He was my doctor father and began talking about the mission of the church and what does that entail and what does that look like amid faithful pastoral care, as we certainly reach out to the lost and shepherd the found. And so we began talking on this over a number of years, and really this book is the product of about 10 years of conversation that we've had. Began writing on it in article forms, different places, and our conversation and fraternal brotherhood on these discussions and family matters and what's going on in the culture really led us forward as we began seeing different trends in culture that were going on, we began recognizing this trend about contextualization. And we were saying, yes, that's true and good. We should be mindful of that. But what about the text of Scripture? And so the context and text began playing back and forth as we observed some extremes in culture and how the church was responding that were going overboard, in our opinion, about the contextualization movement, where we saw things like a health club church or a brewery church or a café church or one, you can even watch a documentary on this called Fight Church. And then some of the extremes were strippers church and swingers church.

14. 04:59

    Michael Horton

    Wow.

15. 05:00

    Lucas Woodford

    So, we're saying there's a concern that we had for these movements within the contextualization movement, which we recognized was flowing out of the broader movements that had happened in the church. I suppose if you look at the church growth movement that had started and then the emergent church that responded to that, the promises that were of the church growth movement that weren't met. The emergent church was upset, and so they had their own version of what the church would look like, and then the movement forward to things like metro spirituality and the missional church movement. So we began looking at— we wanted to have a conversation on this, and we wanted to keep in mind certainly a common sense approach towards contextualization. So we call it common sense contextualization. We wanted to give priority to the text of Scripture. And so during those times of conversation, we said, you know what, we should probably write about this and offer the church an explanation of what it looks like and how the New Testament church upheld the Word of God and the culture that the Word of God creates when it's allowed to lead forward.

16. 06:08

    Michael Horton

    The title is The Culture of God's Word: Faithful Ministry in a Post-Christian Society. The culture of God's Word, that title itself might kind of need some explanation for some of our listeners. Can you go into that a bit?

17. 06:23

    Harold Senkbeil

    The term culture, of course, means many different things to different people. But according to our definition, it's the artifacts, the language, the customs, the values of any people group. Obviously, these are different and distinct depending upon the situation that you're in. But what we were finding is that there was far too much attention being paid to the nuances of each subculture within the broader culture and to try to adjust the message of the gospel to each of the desires and interests of each people group and kind of waters down the message. If you look at the book of Acts, you see there's one clear message, the proclamation of Christ Jesus and him crucified. That connects with each and every subculture in various and different kinds of languages, ethnic groups. And as the gospel spreads from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria, uttermost parts of the earth, there are nuances that happen here and there, but always the same message is proclaimed. So with that in mind, we thought, well, let's take a look at how it was that the apostles went about this work as they addressed shifting cultures, indeed in a very competitive religious market, you might say. A lot of pagan influences being broadcast throughout the Roman Empire at the time. And so they didn't turn tail and run, and they boldly proclaimed Christ. And that message, by the power of the Holy Spirit, grew the church. What we find throughout the book of Acts, not once but 3 times, the phrase St. Luke records, and the word of the Lord grew. So the word of God has an inherent power by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to attract and to draw and to create new minds and new hearts among those who hear the word of Jesus.

18. 08:30

    Michael Horton

    I often say the word doesn't look for an audience, it creates one. You've folks talk quite a bit about the Word creating the church. Can you unpack that a little bit?

19. 08:43

    Harold Senkbeil

    The Word of God changes minds and hearts. The Word of God is a creative power. By the Word of the Lord, the heavens were made, Scripture says. When at the beginning of creation, when there was— the earth was without form and void, and God spoke and said, let there be, and there was. So this inherent power— this is a Reformation principle— that the word of God is an efficacious word. It does something. It's not just information or data, but when God speaks, he creates. And so this is true also in terms of the written word, which comes from the mouth of Jesus, who is the incarnate Word. So this word of God creates a new and transcendent culture that's able to draw people from every language people group, ethnic group, into God's kingdom so that there is neither male nor female but all are one in Christ Jesus throughout geographical areas and throughout different generations of time. So the Church of Christ is transcendent and is able to draw people into its fellowship from all kinds of ethnicities and languages.

20. 10:03

    Michael Horton

    Without diminishing that absolutely fundamental point, how do you respond to those who might say, well, just as the Word became flesh, assumed our human nature, not a particular man, but assumed our nature, but he was a particular Jewish person of his time and place. It isn't just transcendent. It is embodied in a particular time and place. And how do you negotiate the reality on the ground of, yes, the Word creating its own metaculture, but within particular cultures?

21. 10:50

    Lucas Woodford

    We certainly engage and recognize there's a common sense nature to understanding God's Word, while we still affirm its transcendent quality to it. So regardless of the particular people group or subculture one might be a part of, we recognize the importance of a common sense contextualization approach, meaning you have to know the language that people speak. If it's a different language than you are, it's good to know that language and speak it. And sometimes, yes, if you're dealing with a farming community, those subcultures there, then you were someone that's in the urban community, you might have a little bit different vernacular, and you should be aware of that. And in terms of dress and food, those items are common sense that we recognize would be a part of culture. But the transcendent nature is God's Word, that irrespective of whatever time or place or people you are dealing with, God's Word is spoken, and it sets the tone for the culture of the Word. And the culture of the Word, we simply define as the fullness of life enacted by the living and creative Word of the triune God. And so that transcends all cultures, and that creative nature of it in terms of when God speaks, realities are created, continues on. And so we have that as the basic premise of understanding that, yes, we recognize various cultures will exist, but there is that transcendent nature of God's Word that's going to transcend every culture. And so it brings about the life certainly of morality, but the spiritual reality that we have and the importance that regardless of whatever culture you're in, people need the forgiveness of sins and they need the shed blood of Christ to cover them. And so that's the transcendent quality that we uphold as we set forward the culture of the word.

22. 12:51

    Michael Horton

    If the word of God creates the church, what happens when we surrender it or sideline it in favor of other words that we think are more useful or relevant? Does it create a different community?

23. 13:08

    Harold Senkbeil

    I think there's always a tendency, especially in America, we're very pragmatic people, to try to use the word of God rather than allow the word of God to use us. The genius, I think, of the Christian church through the centuries and in various geographical areas is that it manages to connect to all kinds of peoples and languages and customs, and yet— and to draw people from those distinct people groups into an eternal fellowship. And that happens as hearts and lives are changed by the dramatic power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word. The Church, I think, in her wisdom, has called this catechesis. There's certain key texts in Holy Scripture— the Lord's Prayer certainly, and the Ten Commandments— which gives us the structure and order of God's creation, how he intends human beings to live in accordance with his will, and what's really good for them as human beings. And then of course there's the Apostles' Creed, which kind of distills in kind of a Reader's Digest form the wonders of this great saga of salvation. God first created the world, then ransomed and redeemed it in his Son Jesus, and then sanctifies it by his Spirit through the forgiveness of sins, and indeed leads to the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. So this overarching narrative, this story of God's salvation, is what the Church is trying to communicate to each and every people group throughout the generations. By this, catechesis transforms the hearts and lives of people to conform not to the values of their neighbors, but rather the will of God and the newness of life that he intends, the fullness of life, for time and for eternity.

24. 15:04

    Michael Horton

    What do you specifically take away from the book of Acts for putting wheels on this emphasis on the church as a culture produced by the Word?

25. 15:20

    Lucas Woodford

    So Acts, we think, gives us a decent blueprint for the church as it's beginning. It gives us this roadmap for how did it occur? We have Pentecost occurring, and then throughout the book of Acts, you might say there's a bunch of mini Pentecosts that are occurring as the church continues on. And at the core of it, of course, is the word of the Lord. And when it states the word of the Lord grew, there is also with it the people who are gathered around it. And so at the start in Acts chapter 2, after the Pentecost has occurred, it says that they then gathered around the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers. And so it's giving us certainly how the church is created, but then also as it continues on, where they gather around the word and are nourished by it, the word and sacrament, then they go out into their daily lives and are carried by the word and where the Spirit takes them, are reaching out, evangelizing with the Word. And so we think that this framework is a good framework for us to take a look at, even in our modern day, as we look at the power of the Word at work in the lives of people, just as it was in the lives of those in the New Testament church in the Book of Acts.

26. 16:40

    Michael Horton

    As you point out in your subtitle, even, Faithful Ministry in a Post-Christian Society, you're arguing that one reason the Book of Acts is such an important blueprint is because it's inspired by God, but also because we're living in a post-Christian society. They were living in a pre-Christian society. So how does believing that the church is the creation of the Word keep us from either triumphalism on one hand or hand-wringing on the other? I see a lot of both, especially maybe in conservative circles. We do a lot of hand-wringing. This is, you know, talking about the culture being the worst it's ever been in history and so forth. How does that comfort us, that word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth?

27. 17:37

    Harold Senkbeil

    Yeah, I think that's a very good question. As you can see by looking at the cameras or the pictures on your screen, we're of two different generations, Lucas and I, and so we come at the life of the Church in the contemporary society from two different perspectives. But I think by and large, even the younger generation that Lucas represents, remember, he remembers in his youth when literally in rural America, you tended to think that everyone was a Christian. That's no longer the case. You can't assume that. I think after World War II in America especially, it was kind of the heyday of mushrooming and numbers, growing churches, building churches, planting churches right and left. And more than that, if you looked up and down your street, by and large, to a great degree, public morality and mores tended to correspond in a loose way at least to Christian values. That's no longer true. So we expected the culture to do some of the heavy lifting when it came to the life of the church. So what's happening now is that people look at this and they don't have to be an old guy like me to begin to become a little bit worried. You don't have to have a lot of people in the pews with this color of hair to realize that there might be an expiration date on the church if we don't do something radical. And so, like, I have a friend who said the process usually is the same when a church decides to go off the deep end. Somebody says, oh my goodness, this is a crisis, we got to do something, and somebody says, well, here's something, let's do it. There's no evaluation according to the word of God as to what's true and lasting and beautiful in accordance with God's will. We see in the book of Acts how the Church did not cave in to the prevailing pagan culture of its day. It did not correspond its own habits, its own marital customs, its own sexual habits to the values of the people around it. But the Church charted its own direction. Why? Because it was convinced that it was a kingdom not of this world. It was in this world, but it was of the Word, not of the world.

28. Harold Senkbeil

    So with that conviction, if we read in the book of Acts, in the various cities where the Gospel was proclaimed, the complaint against the Christians was these people are disrupting things. They're turning the world upside down. They're changing things. Why? Not because they were moral crusaders, but because they knew a living Lord who transformed their lives.

29. 20:26

    Lucas Woodford

    Yeah, I think one of the challenges that we recognize that the Church has to deal with is when folks are feeling what they would consider the threat against the Church and what's going to happen to it. So I think you get 2 basic reactions. You get anxiety or panic, as Hal was talking about. But sometimes you can also have immobilization and inaction then. And what we're contending for is it's a balancing act. The analogy, I think, that Hal put in there, you got to walk across a river on the log balancing without falling off one side or the other. And so as we approach the challenges that we're in right now, we want to recognize the importance certainly that God's word sets forward, but I think the phrase, how we say it is, common sense contextualization exercised with holy discernment will develop a salutary adaptive capacity. Meaning we recognize that the church has many transcendent qualities of that which are driven by the word of God. But in its expression of that, we can also be mindful that there is some adaptive capacity, the local expression or the organization of the church it has that can be expressed as different congregations deal with the challenges of the time. And so that's where we look at adaptive capacity. It isn't saying that we're going to let culture adapt the Word and have it as it will. No, we're recognizing there's a common sense nature to that, the expression of the local congregation and how it's organized itself. So in my own area of things, I serve as a bishop, I oversee 232 congregations. And one of the challenges that I see regularly with congregations who are on the downward trajectory, but they've hamstrung themselves in some ways because they are relying on their constitution to look at what can they do as an organization. And their constitution is so outmoded, they never made any updates to it for the last 40 years. And 40 years ago, they were about 3,000 members, and now they're about 35 members. And so they lack the ability to have some nimbleness or adaptive capacity because they're being bound in their minds to their constitution. So that's what we mean as one example about what we're talking about, adaptive capacity for the local congregation as it gives expression to itself amid a changing culture wherein, though, of course, we'll always contend the Word of God always sets the tone and leads the way.

30. 23:11

    Michael Horton

    Often, I think all of us who have kids and those who don't as well are wondering, what about the kids? Where are the kids going? And wouldn't it be better to make things a little bit more fun in church to keep the young people? Is that wise, or is it actually bringing young people to the point where there isn't any reason to go?

31. 23:38

    Lucas Woodford

    Yeah, I'll start and I'll let Hal jump in here in just a moment, because this was a conversation I was just having with one of my kids when we were wrestling through this. I have 7 kids, various ages, 22 down to 4, and my first grandchild as well. But we were having a conversation on this on the nature of young folks being in church and the nature of fun. And so I just posed the question to them. Now, this might go to the nature of catechesis, and we unpack this more on the four places of good soil where we think the Word needs to be sown. We can unpack that later. But as it relates to the idea of fun, I just said, well, what's the chief central message of the Word of God? Well, yeah, Dad, it's the forgiveness of sins. Does fun forgive your sins? So, it's the reality of— I'm not saying we can't have fun, and that's a wonderful, good thing, but of what is needful. So, what is essential for it? And of course, it's the forgiveness of sins. Now, that goes to a catechesis question, of course. And if we're so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good to help people understand the need for the forgiveness of sins, yes, I certainly understand that. But the transcendent nature of the Word of God has elements that guide us in our worship and understanding it, the expression of church. And I'll let Hal jump in here now as well.

32. 25:06

    Harold Senkbeil

    Right. I think probably in reality, Mike, it's the boomers who are more interested in fun than the younger people. But I'm seeing a tendency amongst the 20-somethings and even among the teenagers, my grandson and his colleagues, his peers, they're searching for something that's substantive and lasting.

33. 25:25

    Michael Horton

    Yeah.

34. 25:25

    Harold Senkbeil

    Something that's really transforming. And you're not going to find that in light shows and the things that kind of make a big impression. I think there's a tendency on the part of old people like me to try to go back. So conservative Bible-believing Christians think if we just turn the clock back to a simpler time, when everybody believed what was true. Maybe if we did things the way our parents did or how we did when we were young, then maybe everything would fall back in place. So there's a repersonalization movement I think we see across denominations, and Lucas and I in our book say that, you know, that's the wrong way to go. We need to move forward always. We need to be adaptive to new situations. but with a concern for what is lasting and true and solid, that you can sink your life into, you find your foundation in Christ Jesus and the word of his gospel that transforms hearts.

35. 26:29

    Michael Horton

    You brought up the different soils. Can you go back to that and unpack how you treat that?

36. 26:38

    Lucas Woodford

    Yeah, so what we say there, there are four places of good soil that we want to be regular at casting and sowing the word. And so, in summary form, it's worship, catechesis, vocation, meaning your daily station of life, and hospitality. And saturating those 4 places of soil, we'll call them, sowing the seed there, is what helps the Church continue to grow. So again, we've touched a little bit about worship already, but the importance of worship central to the life of the Christian, and it's centered upon the Word of God, the whole counsel of God, but centrally the person of Jesus Christ and his shed blood on the cross of Calvary. Catechesis, we've noted a little bit as well, and that's the importance of teaching. And Hal mentioned 10 Commandments, Apostles' Creed, Lord's Prayer, kind of the historic understanding of what is catechesis and catechisms, if you're using the older language for it, but summary of the Christian faith. And so making sure that as people are catechized by the culture, we have a strong, robust, equal counter-catechesis, if you will, by the depth of the catechesis we teach by God's Word. Then we have vocation. And of course, vocation is not simply someone's job alone, but it is the nature of their station in life, where they are at in their life. And so it's in family, the home, if you want to call it the three estates in classical Reformation or Lutheran lingo as well, the state, where we understand the state, and then the church. So when we talk about state, it's your role in your place as a citizen, but then also in the church, your place as a Christian. And so exercising those vocations in your daily life. And then a key one we have is hospitality, that you be a world that's so inhospitable at such times, such to the extent that it doesn't even know what a human being is anymore. We have these people asking questions of what is a woman in a world that's so inhospitable. The Church should stand ready to be hospitable to those around it.

37. Lucas Woodford

    Opportunities certainly to give care, but just inviting them in for a meal, having them over where your home is saturated in the Word. So it's an opportunity to continually plant the seed in those places of good soil. So we identify those places of practice for the church. With those, we have skills that we like to say that can go with them as well, where I alluded to it earlier, simply the skills of common sense contextualization, where we're mindful of where people are at, the needs that they have in their daily life, where we're exercising wisdom or holy discernment that we call it, so that we can stand ready to have some adaptive capacity on things that there is latitude for us to do that in our organizational or daily expressions of our Christian life.

38. 29:54

    Harold Senkbeil

    Yeah, I think one of the key things about our book is that we contend that really the church has lost its focus due to the culture wars. There's a tendency to try to beat back things that we see that are destructive to the faith, but we use the weapons of sociology and the human terms of the surface things and trying to adjust the way that people think by sheer force. But if you look at the New Testament, you see that our Lord Jesus did not say go forth and make disciples of cultures, but rather make disciples of people. And we're not trying to convert the culture as culture. We're trying to convert people who live within a culture and usher them in by means of the Word of God into this transcendent kingdom of God so that they can live their vocations as lights in an increasingly dark world.

39. 30:52

    Michael Horton

    What do you say to people who include, you know, those soils you were talking about are— I didn't hear anything about engaging society, you know, engaging the culture. We hear that phrase a lot. So if we just, you know, have word, sacrament, prayer, fellowship, hospitality, sounds a lot like just things that go on in your home. You mean just go to work, your vocation? It just sounds too ordinary. What do you say to people who are looking for a little more sizzle?

40. 31:33

    Lucas Woodford

    Sure. Well, first, I know a guy who wrote some book about being ordinary, and I recommend that as well. That's, of course, Mike's book.

41. 31:41

    Michael Horton

    Thank you, Lucas. Checks in the mail.

42. 31:45

    Lucas Woodford

    It's a great book, very formative for me at the time when I read through it as well. But yes, certainly there is— the ordinary is often how the Lord works mightily. And we do recognize the role of people in their, for example, as part members of society, as culture. So yes, go to work, but in your labors as a worker, you're mindful of how you're living out your faith and the truth of that, as well as you're attentive to what's happening in culture. Where is there immorality going on? And likewise, as a citizen, you have an opinion. Certainly you can have an opinion on what you think public policy should be. So it's not a quietist. We're not advertising simply a quietist approach where we're not engaged, but we are also mindful about taking some salutary understanding of your role, where you're at in society and where the church, certainly the church can have a voice to speak to injustice and a right of redress even to the government. But we try to make that and keep that in good order, which some might say is part of the ordinary. But that is what we look at across the New Testament and see how the people of God in the New Testament church lived out their lives. Even Paul, he didn't sidestep his rights as a citizen. He, in fact, he appealed to it. In one case he didn't, in another case he did appeal to his rights as a citizen and to Caesar, and so exercised the political process of his day. So it's a careful, again, that balancing act that we have and encourage along the way as we live out our lives within culture and society.

43. 33:32

    Michael Horton

    I'm reminded of Jesus' comfort to his disciples as they're fearful of the world. And Jesus basically says, well, what did you expect? You know, they hated me before they hated you.

44. 33:48

    Harold Senkbeil

    If they hated me, what are they going to do to you?

45. 33:49

    Michael Horton

    Yeah, exactly. But then he says, fear not, little flock. I love that, little flock. It's hardly a triumphalistic picture. Fear not, little flock, for it is the Father's good pleasure to give you a kingdom. And then in Hebrews, since we are receiving a kingdom, that cannot be shaken, let us worship with gratitude and awe. Do you think that when we refuse to be on the receiving end of God's gift-giving and instead see the church as an opportunity for us to be the givers primarily, we're actually secularizing the church inwardly, internally?

46. 34:41

    Harold Senkbeil

    I think certainly it's possible. We always like to assert ourselves and inject our latest idea rather than what God has in mind for us. So my good friend John Kleinig speaks of a receptive spirituality. The New Testament spirituality is first receptive before it's active. We can only give away what we first received. So to be on the receiving end of God's good grace in Christ Jesus transforms our hearts and lives so that we can be active for him before our neighbor. Passive in faith and active in love is the posture of the Christian. And I think also the New Testament church, that's what we need to remember as we face an increasingly antagonistic climate socially and culturally and ethically. And yet at the same time, we find very promising trends. Like I said, I think amongst some of the 20-somethings, we see a resurgence of interest in those things that are tried and true and lasting. Just the other day, I was meeting with a group of pastors in our local public library because I don't have space here in my own home for a kind of a little conference we were having. And we took a little break, we walked down the hall, and we found a group of, I think, about 10 or 12 high school students with their devices reading out loud, reading Scripture out loud to one another off of their devices. So I think that bodes well for the future of the Church. Rather than wringing our hands, as you say, and throwing up our hands in despair, we need to be bold and courageous and confident in who we are and what we've been given to do.

47. 36:24

    Michael Horton

    In your years of ministry, where have you seen young pastors struggle with understanding this idea of being the culture of the Word? Young pastors are naturally tempted to do something new and innovative. I think that's just a part of being young, you know, we're impatient and then we get older and we get stuck in our ways. Where do young pastors especially struggle with this? And how can we appreciate the wisdom of old age and also the innovation and new thoughts of younger generations?

48. 37:12

    Lucas Woodford

    Yeah, it's a good question. I think I deal— I see that on the spectrum among the congregations that I have and about the 380 pastors that oversee it, it has a wide range of ages within it. And so the younger guys, I think, sometimes wrestle with, am I doing enough? And so they have to recognize, all right, I need to be busier. I have to prove myself or be engaged all the more. And so then they frenetically go about their life and ministry, and have some challenges for their own burnout or their own sanity. Likewise, I think there's also a wrestling with, is the church relevant? Is it being relevant to their community? If we closed shop, one asked me, if I closed up, would my community even know? Would they know that I'm here? And so they have an urgency that's combined with a zeal, I think, that can be salutary, but if it's not carefully brandished by the wisdom of those who have been around the block and in ministry for a little while, sometimes it can get overwhelming for them, and they can get despondent or in some cases just completely burned out.

49. 38:37

    Michael Horton

    What final words of hope do you have for people who go to church, not just for pastors, but for the rest of us?

50. 38:49

    Harold Senkbeil

    I think you have— the reality is that here within the Christian community, wherever two or three are gathered in my name, Jesus says, there am I. So an overfixation on numbers for numbers' sake is not healthy. But on the other hand, as Lucas mentioned, paralysis because of the challenge is not the answer either. The more passive we are in faith, the more active we will be in love. Zeal for the Kingdom comes in realizing what the Kingdom is. We are in contact with the eternal wherever we hear the living Word of God and receive the sacrament. We have a foretaste already here and now of the eternal feast yet to come. Worship is in this world and yet not of this world. It is heaven on earth. We are coming into contact with the saints and angels wherever we are gathered with the people of God, no matter how humble, no matter how grandiose. It doesn't matter. We see the kingdom of God for what it is, and we look forward to that day when Jesus says, you've been faithful in a few things, now enter into the kingdom of God. And this is the glories have now begun. Further up, higher in, higher up and further in, as they say, as Lewis writes, right?

51. 40:07

    Michael Horton

    That'll preach.

52. 40:09

    Harold Senkbeil

    That's right.

53. 40:11

    Michael Horton

    Well, thank you, brother, so much for your insights here. I think it's a real encouragement to many parishioners and pastors to be encouraged that just being faithful at the same thing over a long period of time. It's like watching corn grow. Well, yeah, Jesus kind of said it was like that. So there's something here to being part of the culture that is created and sustained and formed by the Word of God. And we just got to trust, trust him that he knows how to build his kingdom. Brothers, thank you so much for taking the time to help us unpack this.